


The Shape of Acceptance

by Domimagetrix



Series: Razwan Bahir, World Guardian [12]
Category: Runescape
Genre: Adult Language, Frank Flirting, Gaslighting, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, Psychological Manipulation, Unhealthy Relationships, divergence from canon, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 04:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13403811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domimagetrix/pseuds/Domimagetrix
Summary: Sliske offers Razwan an uncomfortable look into her own inner workings, slanted to his purpose. Rather than respond to discomfort as she usually does, she decides to spend time among friends....and family.





	The Shape of Acceptance

_‘Cause I’m highly flammable  
_ _A caged-up animal  
_ _I will go off on you…  
_ _You better take it back  
_ _I’m about to snap  
_ _I will go off on you…_

 

Porcelain and the Tramps - “Gasoline”

  


I brushed a flap aside and blinked at the familiar, partially obscured sight of home, the desert sun’s brilliance having painted afterimages like acid-spattered ghosts over my field of vision. Blinking did little; the shapes pulsed brighter - or darker, I could never quite decide - in time with it. There was nothing to do but let the tent flap fall closed and allow them to fade naturally.

The silence was welcome after the crowded streets of Varrock. Eyes mostly adjusted to the darkness, I dropped my kit and padded around floor cushions to the rear partition, lifting it out of the way.

Sliske reclined on my bed.

Of course he was here. Just when I so desperately needed him to be anywhere else, he was here.

He was clothed, thankfully. Or unfortunately. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him or anything else since the fortune teller’s reading, only that the cumulative emotional pressure that’d built since she’d dealt the cards threatened tears and recklessness now. Gypsy Aris’s words still rang in my head.

Not the ideal mindset with which to confront the bane of my existence.

Sliske’s smile was as sly as ever. “You look troubled, pet. Why don’t you join me and we’ll talk about it, hmm?” He gestured with long fingers splayed toward the lower half of his robe. “Plenty of room.”

I stepped in and let the heavy cloth fall behind me. My voice sounded hollow. “No. I’m going somewhere else. Make yourself at home, pour yourself a drink, fuck off, I don’t care. Not going to be here either way.” I moved to a shelf laden with strange objects and tried to imagine a world where my bed was blessedly empty of asshole Mahjarrat, pointedly ignoring the fact that I’d invited this particular asshole Mahjarrat often enough for him to feel the invitation an open-ended one.

Sliske’s smile evaporated. He sounded dangerously neutral. “And where do you think you’re running to now, little Ali? Where does such a troubled, chaotic World Guardian find her… no.” His eyes narrowed. “No, I understood when you stood with him against us, but you’re _emotionally compromised_ now, aren’t you?”

His pitch rose at the end of his last question and I glared at him. “You were banking on that.”

His smile returned, the curve a little crueler and less playful. “I was _expecting_ it, pet. Nomad gone, you as conflicted as you always are, and stripped of your usefulness to Zamorak to boot. You aren’t often needy and I rather appreciate that about you, but there’s no doubt you’re fragile as glass right now. You have your needs and I’m more than capable of meeting them.” He crooked a finger at me. “Zaros’s former Legatus Maximus isn’t.”

Ignoring the beckon, I pulled Moia’s device from the shelf and eyed the teleport switch on the side. My fingers played along the gold grille on top. “Funny you should mention Nomad, _aziz-am._ Particularly since you fucking toyed with us until he left.”

Sliske’s hand dropped next to him on the bed and he sighed irritatedly. “Of all the times for you to forego pleasure and pursue business. _Fine.”_ He sat up and folded his legs beneath him, his robe twisting to accommodate the new position. “I did nothing more than provide a stage for the truth to be seen.” He grinned again. “Would you like to hear that truth, _aziz-am?_ The uncut and unadulterated truth?”

I snorted. “Don’t go and end the world or anything. There’s a line forming for that.”

He snarled. “I told you before, Razwan. I’ve never lied to you. Withheld the truth, of course, but never lied. I tire of the accusation.”

My fingers slid a little closer to the teleport switch, and I held Moia’s device so he could see what I was doing. It occurred to me to mention lies of omission but he’d no doubt have an excuse for that, too.

Instead, I hefted the box in warning. “I’m waiting. Make it good.”

He lifted an eye ridge. “I always do.” His hand waved dismissively. “In any event, Nomad is at risk with you. You’ll break him.”

My hands stilled on the box. I stared at Sliske. “Care to fucking say that again?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, do go on. You know it as well as I.” One of his long-fingered hands patted the bed in front of him. “Despite all he’s done and all he’s destroyed, you accept him. In your bed, your home, your life. The man is riddled with self-doubt on every front save his twisted desire to ‘save the world,’ and here you’ve handed him the key to its future in the form of yourself.” His hand waved in the air toward me. “The World Guardian, right in his clutches. Often chained and at his mercy.”

Sliske leaned back, eyes half-lidded and smug. “You give him caveat-free acceptance and what he sees as lordship over Gielinor’s fate. A position with you that satisfies all the shortcomings he sees in himself. You represent forgiveness, perhaps even redemption. I’d almost say you’ve forged by accident a greater temptation for our Nomad than I could’ve done at the height of inspiration.”

I wanted to dismiss Sliske’s words, but the emotional buildup welled again and I swallowed it back. “I didn’t trap him, you fucking pile. I _do_ accept-”

His hand waved me to silence. “Of course, of course. Damaged as you are, you gravitated toward someone with the same flaws. The same susceptibilities. ‘What respectable person would have me?’ you ask yourself in your heart of hearts, and too right.” His voice became silky. “You’re a thief, a liar, a murderer, a boon to the occasional stranger by serendipity alone. Aligned to a god deemed evil by your hometown, first because you’re a contrarian by nature and later out of some misguided illusion of friendship. Spending long and sweaty nights with a man who’s killed thousands of your kind for his own gains.”

Sliske winked at me, still looking too satisfied for my liking “To be perfectly blunt, you’re irresistible to both of us. However, I know you for _everything_ you are, whereas our Nomad sees some mixture of you and what he only wishes you were. He never saw you siding against him. That one small deviation was enough to send him scurrying. What will happen to him when Razwan Bahir is revealed to him in full? What will that _do_ to him, pet?”

I was silent. The device felt heavy in my hands. “I don’t believe you.”

A lie.

Sliske shook his head, eyes closing for a moment before opening again. “You’re delectable when you attempt dishonesty with me. Even as I bled and struggled to regain myself after our little exchange, you lied to me.”

“When the fuck did I lie to _you?”_ I felt indignant, but something moved unsettlingly in my gut.

He bit his lip, sharp canine indenting it before he spoke again. His voice became an absurd lilt in parody of my voice. “‘I don’t care. I don’t love you, either.’”

He held a hand to his chest and his eyelids fluttered. “Would you say it again for me, right now?” What started life as yet another finger-crook became several fingers curling in invitation as he looked at me again. “Lie to me and wrap those little thief’s fingers around my neck. Whisper it in my ear.”

I spat the words before it occurred to me that I was doing as he’d asked. “I don’t fucking love you.”

Sliske’s body moved smoothly, a fluid, shoulder-to-hip affair interesting to watch despite my anger. “Mmmm. _Mean_. I like mean. Come, postpone that little trip to Zammy’s refuge and put those liar’s lips to more interesting use-”

 _“Khange khodah.”_ I sneered at him.

He snorted. “‘Gods-damned,’ she calls me! I’d be wounded if it weren’t so twistedly ironic coming from you.”

So he preferred the lies and I’d been called out.

I spoke as my thumb levered the little switch on the box upward. My eyes met Sliske’s and didn’t look away.

The lies intrigued him.

I wasn’t out of options.

The smile I leveled at him felt worthy of one of his own smug grins. “I love you.”

_Deal with that, Praefectus Pricktorio._

The world around me fractured, and the teleport to Zamorak’s sanctum transformed my tent, my bed, and Sliske into a kaleidoscopic fractal that first sank then rose above me, replaced with silvery-white light.

The light reminded me of Nomad’s spells.

It wasn’t quick enough to avoid Sliske’s laugh. It followed me as I teleported away.

_I really should just kill him._

  


………..

  


_Don’t look to me  
_ _I do not lead  
_ _I’m just in front, not following_

 

Mindless Self Indulgence - “MDC”

 

The deepest of Daemonheim’s floors was lined in red stone, and glyphs along the walls poured warm, erubescent light into the chamber and sub-rooms. Symbols followed the gentle descent of the main floor toward its center, circling a platform. On the far end of the room, Zamorak’s imposing throne stood empty.

A deep, feminine voice addressed me from behind. “Razwan?”

I turned to face Moia. I was struck again by her pink eyes and marveled how similar they were to Nomad’s. They differed in color, but matched in the near-uniform glow interrupted by a slightly brighter combination of iris and pupil.

It was an association I regretted instantly.

Those eyes creased in concern as she took in my expression. “You look… something. I don’t know.” She leaned in, sniffing, and wrinkled her nose. “You smell like Sliske.”

I opened my mouth and closed it. Rather than answer, I turned to the side, pacing back and forth near the little platform in the center of the room with my arms crossed over myself. I felt brittle and exposed.

She spoke carefully. “Is something wrong?”

Spinning, I stopped where I was and stared at the floor. “I need to talk. To someone. I don’t know.” I threaded fingers through my hair and visually traced the glyphs between my feet. “It’s not a danger to Zamorak or any of you, I just… need. Something.”

Footsteps approached and _something_ wrapped itself around me before I could look up.

Moia. She’d embraced me - or attempted to - with one metal-clad forearm resting uncomfortably against my neck while the other dug somewhere between my shoulderblades. I stilled, fighting the urge to stiffen, then wrapped my arms around the taller woman. We both took a step back after a silent and mutually-understood number of seconds had passed.

She looked as awkward as I felt, but her features relaxed slightly with a smile. “Did that help?”

I laughed, the flood of pressure in my chest receding a little. “Thanks.” I looked up to the empty throne and back at Moia. “Is Zamorak expected back soon?”

“Expectation is no longer necessary.” Zamorak’s cooling-magma voice spoke from behind me and I turned. “Is there something you wish to discuss?”

I inhaled to speak, did nothing with it, and exhaled. I nodded.

His eyes narrowed in consideration. “You carry Sliske’s scent about you again.”

My shoulders sank tiredly. “I get that a lot.”

He looked to Moia then back at me, long thoughts to which I wasn’t privy weighing in the silence. Deciding something, he looked at Moia again. “We need privacy. Please keep everyone out of this chamber until I tell you otherwise.” He paused. “Including Bilrach.”

“Of course.” Her footsteps made light echoes as she left, and a door _clanged_ heavily.

Zamorak gave me the full force of his red gaze. He waited.

I opened my mouth with no idea what to say. Words tumbled out anyway. “I’m fucking up. Nomad’s gone. He left. He didn’t expect me to stand with you but Sliske did. That _harum zadeh_ is pulling strings and I can’t quite piece together what he’s up to, but he’s also right and I’m fucking up. I didn’t fuck up standing with you in that field and I’d do it again, but he didn’t understand why and he _should’ve known.”_

I paced again. “I have three hellrat babies and a thirteen-year-old adopted kid with no concept of what he wants to do or be living with Rhyaz, of all people, when I’m gone. _Rhyaz._ I have these… they’re my kids, but I’m doing whatever I’m doing with Sliske on top of this World Guardian shit and somehow I managed to _chase Nomad away_ and he’s _Nomad,_ for fuck’s sake! I put everyone around me in danger, everyone that matters, and not everyone’s capable of dealing with this shit. _My_ shit. The Scourge of fucking Souls can’t handle my shit.”

I stopped, looking up at Zamorak. “I have some kind of family I didn’t ask for and I can’t… can’t. Any of it. I’m fucking up.”

A large, clawed hand rested on my shoulder before I could continue vomiting words at my friend. The god of chaos let it rest there a moment before withdrawing it, curling two fingers in a beckoning gesture and turning toward his throne. “Come sit with me, Razwan.”

I walked with him up to the impressive stone chair, turning and sitting on one of the stairs. I waited for him to take his throne and lecture me about strength, or maybe to give me a dressing-down for displaying so much weakness in his presence.

Instead, he stopped next to his throne and sat on the stair with me. The bottom of his vivid robe pooled prettily around him and he reached toward the base of his throne, pressing a bit of it and releasing a catch to reveal a compartment below. He reached inside and pulled out a stone box, resting it in his lap.

The box was small in his hands. Clawed thumbs rested on either side of the lid and Zamorak looked at me with that same weighted gaze he’d had when telling Moia to give us time alone. “I’m going to show you something that none save I have known about since the time of the Empire. I ask that you reveal it to no one.”

My curiosity was piqued. I’d heard Wahisietel speak of Zaros’s Empire, and Azzanadra would prattle on at length on the subject with minimal prodding, but I’d never before heard Zamorak speak of it in any tone but disgust. Now, he sounded almost… nostalgic.

I nodded, my own concerns forgotten. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Zamorak looked down, seeming to gather himself. The expression on his face was strange for him. His thumbs stroked the edge of the box. “You know about Khazard. My son. You know who his mother was.”

“Palkeera.” I almost whispered the name.

He nodded. “She and I had been at odds before, and I think she relished our debates and sparring as much as I did. She was strong in every conceivable way. She was also my confidante.”

His thumbs worked the lid open and swung it up on its hinges, and several wooden, carved shapes rested in cloth depressions inside the box. Careful claws plucked one of the little polished items up and he held it to me, depositing it in my palm when I opened my hand. He spoke quietly. “Palkeera.”

Resting one palm below the other, I ran a thumb over the figurine. “She was beautiful.” Though small, the carving detailed sharp Mahjarrat facial features, down to the tiny forehead gems in relief just below the edge of a hood. Unlike Moia and Enakhra, she had a sturdier build, muscular. She looked strong. “When did you have these made?”

Zamorak was quiet until I looked up at him. His glowing gaze looked almost pinched, as though he were preparing himself for something. “I whittled them myself.”

I blinked. “You?” I looked back down at the figurine, brushing it reverently with fingertips. “I didn’t know you did anything like this.”

“No one alive knows. Only Palkeera did, long ago, when I first started. It was a sentimental activity to pass the time when I was out in the field.”

I passed Palkeera back to him and he put her back in the box, withdrawing another figure and handing it to me. “Wahisietel.”

Surprised, I looked carefully at it. Zamorak’s carving had captured Ali the Wise’s true Mahjarrat form perfectly, from gems to the gentle, thoughtful expression with which I was familiar. I glanced back up at Zamorak. “It looks like him.” I handed it back. “You even pegged that constant background exasperation in his face. He was like that back then, too?”

“I’ve never known him to be anything else, even back then.” He handed me a couple others.

One was tiny, an infant. I looked at the defiant little face warped with a yawn and smiled despite who I knew it to be. “Khazard.” I looked at the other, surprised. “And Azzanadra?”

Zamorak nodded and accepted the figurines when I handed them back. “Khazard and Azzanadra. The latter’s chin gave me no shortage of trouble. It took four attempts before it stopped looking like some misplaced bit of Zaros got stuck on it.”

I chuckled, then sobered. “Why did you keep this secret? Couldn’t a general be an artist back in the Empire?”

He spoke as he lifted the setting where the other figures lay and removed it, setting it aside and revealing another layer of figurines inside the box. “They could, and many were. This felt… too personal to share. Had I painted or been of an architectural inclination the way Mizzarch was, I might’ve told others, but this… was mine. Mine and Palkeera’s secret, and I preferred it that way.”

He handed me several of the figurines from the second layer. They felt and looked newer, the wood different despite being carefully polished and preserved as the earlier ones had been. Bilrach’s half-serious, half-bewildered face was flawless. As was Enakhra’s perpetual scowl, Zemouregal’s haughty smile, and Moia’s thoughtful concern. A new Khazard lay among them, as prideful here as he’d been the last time I’d seen him.

I stroked each carefully as though confirming they did, indeed, exist. “You’re very talented.”

He smiled when I looked up, a different one even from the rare smile I’d seen in him elsewhere. Pleasure colored his voice. “Thank you.” He looked down at the figures and I handed them back to him. “They are my family.”

I blinked, suprised. “Your family?”

Zamorak nodded. “And yours.”

_Mine?_

He handed me another figure from the box.

This one was human, fairly lithe, muscles smooth and toned. An impressive array of wild, curly hair had been carved from the head and down the back, smoother near the top but more detailed toward the ends, as though Zamorak had struggled with the feature before discovering how to persuade it from the wood. He was a fast learner despite having no instructor to teach him.

It was me. From scimitars strapped to the back to the faint network of scars on my arms, it was a perfect little likeness.

I looked up at Zamorak, the previous ball of worry supplanted by something new. Tears threatened and I blinked them away.

He took the little figurine, placing it back in its setting and replacing the second layer above the first in the box. He closed it, the smile still playing at his features. “I’ve learned much from our association. My understanding of family has broadened with it. I’d observed human families while in the Empire, but never with such close involvement as you’ve offered recently.”

Zamorak returned the box to the secret compartment and closed it, the fascia blending seamlessly with the stone, and turned back to me. “Bilrach, Khazard, Moia, Hazeel, Daquarius, Zemouregal, Enakhra, you. You’ve taken on a son of your own, accepted me, and though you have family by blood you have extended that family. Chosen them, and are they any less family to you for it?”

I shook my head. The conversation felt surreal. “No. Some - like you - are more family to me than people I’ve known since birth.” My eyes went to the base of Zamorak’s throne again. “I didn’t think you felt like that.”

He canted his head. “Nor did I, not for certain, until you stood with me during Sliske’s competition. I decided it firmly when I remained behind to fight him with you.”

Zamorak laughed then, looking back across the glyph-decorated floor. “One thing I’ve noticed is how rarely families adhere to blood alone, and how little they seem to organize themselves or behave rationally.” He looked back at me. “However, when circumstances threaten it, even families as bizarre as ours converge and protect their members with uncompromising ferocity. Strength and chaos in a less-than-tidy package. Surely you see the appeal.”

I chuckled. “Maybe I do.” The dose of mirth bled away, and despite the revelations and good feelings, I thought back to the reason I’d come here and was stricken with melancholy. “Sliske isn’t the problem. He’s a sign of the sickness. I’m that sickness. Nomad-”

“How much do you know of Nomad’s familiarity with family?”

I closed my mouth, surprised. What in _Duzakh’s_ depths _did_ he know about family? His parents murdered, abused at every turn until he learned to abuse in return.

_He… fuckdamnit._

“Nothing except what he’s seen with me.” My voice was soft with wonderment. “I don’t think he’s ever had one.”

Zamorak shrugged elegantly. “You’ve assumed, of course.” He gestured at the chamber around us. “Moia was discarded and needs a family to rebuild her sense of herself and her power. Khazard had Hazeel for a time, but requires much more in order to temper his pride with experience and reason. Bilrach…,” he paused, “...needs a firm support, as he’s lost so much of himself seeking me and maintaining this place in my absence.” His hand met the other in his lap and he laced his fingers. “People come to a family with needs of their own. A family worth the time does what it can to facilitate them becoming better, learning to address those vulnerabilities and fortify what needs fortifying. They strengthen.”

I felt ashamed. “I didn’t do that.” A sick feeling rolled in my gut. “Sliske said I was just a temptation, that I represented what Nomad wants and needs, but I failed.”

He sneered. “Sliske will say whatever fuels his aims.” His expression softened. “I have no fondness for Nomad, and have stayed my hand out of deference to you. That you know.”

I nodded.

“Speak freely to him when he returns. Do not dull the blade, but cut to the very heart of the matter. Hide nothing from him.” Zamorak reached out and patted the base of his throne before braiding his fingers together again. “Some of it may be unkind, but remind him that he needn’t be the most important figure in your life to be important. Moia understands this with Khazard. Hazeel understands this with Bilrach. He will understand. If he doesn’t, let him go about his way without you. He is unworthy in my eyes, and if your priority doesn’t sit well with him, he should be unworthy in yours.”

His words elicited a strange mixture of satisfaction and worry in me.

 _I hope he does understand._ An unworthy Nomad was a dead one, whether by my hand or Zamorak’s. _You’d better fucking understand, Quen. Fuck._

I met Zamorak’s gaze. “Alright. I still don’t know what to do about Sliske, though. He might’ve ‘revealed the truth,’ but he’s still meddling with my shit.”

The god looked thoughtful. “I won’t deny your association with him bothers me, but the choice is yours.” He looked out to the center of the room and back at me. “People come to families, to those most important to them, with needs. What does Sliske seek?”

I slouched, sighing. “I was hoping you might know.”

Zamorak stared out into the chamber again. “You undermine his efforts, and yet he doesn’t kill you out of hand. He meddles with _you_ , Razwan. With Nomad, with your relationship to me, but ultimately with _you._ Attempts to break things into pieces he can move or mold. Why? Why would he destabilize parts of your life as he has? Try to force a rearrangement of them? Make any of those elements smaller?”

“Because he’s an irritating asshole.”

He snorted. “You’ll get no argument from me.” His serious red eyes met mine. “He’s also making space for himself.”

I stilled. Maybe stopped breathing, it was hard to tell.

_You have to be fucking kidding me._

My mouth formed the words, lungs gave them air, but my mind was slow in processing them. “He’s… no. There’s no fucking way. He plays games and leaves piles of camel shit for me to step in and fucks with my life, destroying that life bit by bit-”

“-Not destroying it. _Rearranging_ it.” Zamorak tapped his temple near the base of one of his horns with a clawed fingertip. “Think about it. He could easily kill Nomad. He could kill Saiman and your _infirroderi._ Your hell-rodents. Carve away most of what you have irretrievably, leaving you weak and desperate. Instead, he unsettles you. Gets in the way. Makes a constant nuisance of himself.”

I blinked stupidly out at the chamber floor. “He’s… he could’ve just said something.”

Zamorak’s mirth echoed in the wide room. “When has Sliske ever been direct? I can tell you he was no such a thing during his time in the Empire, even with Trindine.”

“With Trindine?” I looked back.

He lifted an eye ridge. “Their relationship was comprised of games. She played them equally well as he. Better, on occasion, and he seemed to enjoy that. Trindine sometimes pulled the rug out from beneath his feet and Sliske was all the more enamored with her for it.”

Zamorak stood, straightening his robe. “It won’t be long before Bilrach starts insisting and barges in here. I have a few demons among my ranks whose experience may be helpful in undoing your contract, and I’ve been negligent in pursing them.”

I stood. “I’ll go home, then. I’ve got…”

My voice trailed off as I thought. I smiled. “I’ve got an idea of my own.”

Zamorak reached as I did, and we clasped each other’s forearms. His smile was as warm as the air around us. “I hope it proves fruitful. Strength through chaos, Razwan Bahir. And through family.”

I squeezed before letting go. “Power greater through the challenge, Zamorak. And through family.”

Snatching Moia’s device from the shelf where I’d left it upon arrival, I chanted the teleport to Pollnivneach. Zamorak’s chamber faded from my vision and was replaced with gold-white light.

_Time to pull the rug out from beneath some asshole feet._

  


………..

  


_I only know that you’re the one who always makes me feel it  
_ _It’s nothing that you do or say, it’s just the way you are  
_ _If I could bottle what you’ve got, then life would be near perfect  
_ _I’ll take it as it comes, any way you choose to give it_

 

The Black Ghosts - “Anyway You Choose to Give It”

  


Shadows coalesced into a Mahjarrat form as I toed my boots off and replaced the communications device on the shelf in my bedroom. The lack of Quen’s presence still hurt, but I shelved the feeling and faced my visitor.

 _“Aziz-am._ You look…” Sliske stilled, face puzzled, “...certain of yourself.”

I strode to him and pressed a hand to his chest, pushing him back. He allowed it, sitting on the bed, and I sat straddling him. He looked no less puzzled as I smiled up at him. “Void the contract, Sliske.”

His puzzlement broke and he laughed down at me. “I told you, my dear. Not without-”

“I formally agree to enter into a new contract with you, provided you first void the old one.”

He froze again. “You’re desperate. You want to be useful to Zamorak again, and now you’ve come crawling to me to fix it.”

I shook my head and slid hands up to his face, thumbs playing along his jawline. “No. I want to see what you’ll do next.”

Uncertainty tinctured his voice. “This isn’t you, Razwan.”

“No.” I rose up on my knees until I could reach his mouth and kissed him. “World Guardian tonight, _love.”_ I brushed the hood away and ran fingers over the revealed ridges along his head. “You get your new contract. I get what I want from you in return. Agreed?”

Sliske swallowed. “Your previous contract with me is terminated, and you’re obligated to accept the new one.” He made a small sound as my teeth found his ear. “Why?”

I spoke softly, nuzzling his neck. “Because you love games, and I love you, and this is the next logical step.” I leaned back, meeting amber-gold irises with my amber-ringed ones. “Let’s play, Sliske.”

He seemed to consider something, and whatever occurred to him saw the return of his grin. “Let’s do.” He fell back on the bed, drawing me with him, and kissed me. Claws dug into my back as he trapped me against him. “Very well, pet. We’ll begin with your new contract.”

He whispered into the cloud of my hair. I whispered back into his ear. He laughed, and agreed.

We played.

I fell asleep with an asshole Mahjarrat in my bed and asshole Mahjarrat arms wrapped around me.

It felt like home.

  


_Darlin’ I hope that my dream never haunted you._

 

Billie Holliday - “Gloomy Sunday”


End file.
